Originally Posted by Swimmin

I can't really say I was a non swimmer when I started swimming close to 2 years ago (I was 37). I was able to stay still in the deep end but really not for long. All I knew is the basics of the basics...

So I went with a friend and his son to their local pool on a weekly basis for maybe a couple months and then I started to go only with his son and he taught me the basic swim strokes, how to get stuff in the bottom of the pool etc... I then started to go on my own as I wanted to swim more than once or twice a week.

At that point I really got more confident and stated to time my laps so I can have a baseline on how to improve. It went really fast at that point because I was swimming daily and even often twice a day except week ends so I can recover a bit. My health improved greatly by lowering my blood pressure alot and about 20+ pounds of weight. Before starting swimming I could barely run a few minutes before my knees hurt and now my knees are fine for the occasional run I may do. We have lots of knee and hip problems in my family so swimming is making the articulations move with the least amount of stress on them.

Last week I did 3 kilometers (120 times 25 meters) of lap swimming in under an hour and for me thats a great achievement when I consider from where I started and the previous 15 years of sedentarity.

All this is a big confidence booster and also an incentive to keep up swimming. So long story short if you can get into a pool DO IT.